Consumerism as an Expression of Innovative Capacity

Image: Phonebloks

Consumers are supposed to be at the end of innovation, after a creative idea is worked out and processed into an actual product they can buy. Yet more and more consumers are taking the innovation flowchart and turning it on its head — with surprising results. To understand how consumerism fits in the innovation equation, we need to see where the world thinks creativity is supposed to happen and where it actually happens. Why? Because creativity is a prerequisite for innovation. That nuance matters in this age of breakneck technical progress and globalization.

Creativity and Life-Changing Innovation

The world has heard many stories about creativity sparking life-changing innovations: Edison and the light bulb, Goodyear’s accidental spill of rubber onto the hot stove, Google’s first webpage linkup and indexing. And for many years companies have tried to pipe that same powerful creativity inside the corporate machine in order to turn out novel products and churn big profits. But whether that equation translates into real life or not is another question.

Many companies try to hire creative talent through puzzles and brain teasers with the assumption that they are acquiring crucial innovative capacity. Orin Davis unravels a tight argument in Prescouter Journal about creativity and why people (and companies) might be wrong in thinking what it really is and where it actually happens. Companies looking to hire outside-the-box thinkers to revitalize their workplace will not succeed unless they have the right managerial infrastructure in place. Without the right support in the corporate workplace, creative ideas will not thrive.

Corporate-Branded Innovation vs. Consumer-Driven Innovation

Corporate-branded innovation is challenged today by open source and consumer driven innovation. Let’s say Ben is an average customer of a company that sells coffee cups. One morning, he reaches for a newspaper and accidentally pushes his factory-made coffee cup off the table, where it shatters on the floor. Instead of buying a new one, he decides to make one himself. Ben buys a set of specialized thermoplastic sheets. Then he logs on to an online blueprint maker and changes the blue and red corporate color scheme of his coffee cup into green polka dots. He goes home and sets the polymer in place, runs the blueprint software, and hits 3D print. What comes out is a product of Ben’s consumerism as well as his innovation.

Consumer-Innovators

Ben is still a consumer in the sense that he uses his purchasing power to acquire the supplies he needs. Yet he is also an innovator in contrast to the passive consumer who waits at the end of the commercial pipeline.

Consumer-Innovator

Passive Consumer

Gets supplies from various stores

Does not have control as to where product is sourced

Processes supplies to manufacture product

Does not have control as to how product is made

Customizes design

Does not have control as to how product is designed

The passive consumer is not included in the process of either innovation or manufacturing. Insofar as the final product is made according to its purpose is concerned, the passive consumer is powerless. This is true in almost all aspects of the consumerist lifestyle. We buy ready to wear clothes at the mall. We eat in-store prepared meals at the restaurant. We purchase smartphones with preset features and preconfigured hardware parts. Furthermore, if the pair of jeans of the 2G smartphone doesn’t suit our needs, we throw it away and shop for another one.

Ben’s consumerism on the other hand, is an expression of his innovative capacity. These radical projects and concepts are built on the same bedrock of consumer-driven innovation:

Phonebloks – A concept-customizable smartphone built with detachable Lego-like components sourced from manufacturers

Davis points out that people who find creative solutions to challenges do not really go beyond standard thinking but stay rooted in the boundaries of the “box” or in this case, traditional models. Though consumer-innovators are divergent, they still stay in sight of the home base. Consumerism of this kind does not kill creativity but sustains the capacity for open-source innovation.

Estel Masangkay is a freelance writer covering innovation, green tech, and environmental topics. She is passionate about self-learning and intellectual exploration and is a regular contributor for the PreScouter Journal.